File:Greek athletic sports and festivals (1910) (14583547428).jpg

Identifier: greekathleticspo00gard (find matches)
Title: Greek athletic sports and festivals
Year: 1910 (1910s)
Authors: Gardiner, E. Norman (Edward Norman), 1864-1930
Subjects: Athletics Sports Olympics Fasts and feasts
Publisher: London : Macmillan and Co.
Contributing Library: Harold B. Lee Library
Digitizing Sponsor: Brigham Young University

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and thereforeidentified by Dr. Waldstein with the boxer Euthymus, thoughrecent evidence tends to show that the statue really representsthe god and no mortal athlete. At the other extreme we havethe neat, small, sinewy forms of the warriors on the Aeginetanpediments (Fig. 10). Between the two come a number of types.Unfortunately we have no extant examples of the great Argiveschool. The bronze in which the Argive sculptor worked wastoo valuable to escape the ravages of the plunderer, and acertain monotony, which must have characterized purelyathletic sculpture, prevented the later copyist from reproducingthese works. But if we may argue from the Ligourio bronze(Fig. 11), the Argive type was short like the Aeginetan butheavier and more fleshy. On the other hand, the statues whichare recognized as copies of the famous group of Critias andNesiotes^ representing Harmodius and Aristogeiton show a 1 Greek Sculphire, Fig. 25 ; •cp. B.C.H., 1907, p. 187.2 Greek Sculpture, Figs. 34, 35, 36. X
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Fig. 9.—Choiseul-Gouffier Apollo. British Museum.91 92 GREEK ATHLETIC SPORTS AND FESTIVALS chap. taller, larger-boned type, more approaching that of the Choiseul-Gouffier Apollo, which may perhaps be recognized as Athenian.^But in all this diversity of physical type we ask ourselves invain what class of athlete is represented in any particularstatue, whether a boxer, a wrestler, a pentathlete, or a runner.The reason seems to be that in all these statues the ideal Fig. 10.—Figure from E. pediment at Aegina. Munich.(Greek SculjJture, Fig. 41.) element is strong; there is a difference of build, but each buildis shown with the fullest all-round development of which it iscapable. Certainly there is not in this period a single figurethat represents a typical runner so clearly as does the Apolloof Tenea. Perhaps the nearest type to that of the runneris the Aeginetan; but unfortunately we know that the events 1 Cp. a fine archaic bronze diskobolos in tlie Metropolitan Museum of NewYork, p

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